
Class. 
Book. 



_ . 



m 




THE MARTYR PRESIDENT. 



Our Grief and Our Duty. 




BY J" . O . BTTTHLIEIR, 

, H 

PASTOR OF ST. PU':. ■ I.C THERAX CHURCH. 



WASHINGTON, D. C: 
McGILL & W1THER0W, PRINTERS AND STERE0TYPER8. 



LETTER OF REQUEST. 



Washington, April 17, 1865. 
Rev. J. G. Butler : 

Dear Sir : The undersigned members and friends of your church and 
congregation, who listened to the earnest, patriotic, and eloquent address, 
called forth by the foul assassination of President Lincoln, delivered by 
you in St. Paul's Church on Easter morning, 16th instant, and regretting 
that a report of the same which appeared in the papers was so meager 
and unsatisfactory, most respectfully request a copy for publication, in 
pamphlet form, that the expressed desire of many to preserve it may be 
gratified, and with a firm belief that the cause of good government and 
pure and undefiled religion will be subserved by a wider dissemination of 
the great truths so ably and fully set forth therein. 

J. A. RHEEM, A. NOERR, 

JOS. F. KELLEY, 

A. F. WILLIAMS, 

A. C. SPAULDING, 

CHAS. PITCHER, 

W. II. SIGSTON, 

C. LEPLEY, 

THOMAS CRUX, 

J. G. WEAVER, 

J. IT. REISS, 



A. S. PRATT, 

A. HOWLAND LEE, 

S. A. PEUGH, 

G. W. MARTIN, 

N. ACKER, 

M. M. ROHRER, 

WM. H. FRY, 

J. N. BURKET, 

J. H. KUEHLING, 

LEWIS HEYL. 



REPLY 



Gentlemen : The discourse for which you so kindly ask was wholly 
extemporaneous, inspired by the deep grief which so suddenly overwhelmed 
our nation. I have, amid pressing duties, hastily endeavored to reproduce 
it. The times call for earnest thoughts and earnest men. When the 



nation's life is in dang derful 

of the battle field be well 

ioned all this blood yet struggl 

[f my voice or Life can in anj I overnment 

and pi my own, I . i uth's 
The manuscri | 
1 am, genl ry truly, for God and our country, yours, 

BUTLER, 
Pasti of v ' Pa I's Church. 
St. Paul's Pai Ipril 24, 1 



To Messrs. J. A Dr. A 11. 



OUR GRIEF AND OUR DUTY. 



The Gospel for toe pat from the 24th Chypteu of Luke was read. 



These badges of mourning, in the Sanctuary to-day, direct our 
thoughts to the terrible tragedy which has rilled our city, our 
whole land, with sorrow. And though this be our Communion 
season, I feel that the improvement of this sad Providence fur- 
nishes the theme of discourse to-day. I am inadequate to the 
occasion My heart has been well nigh paralyzed by the startling 
Providence. I feel that I am in deep sympathy with you, and 
with the loyal heart of this entire land. Even treason will blush 
with shame at this assassination. I would prefer to be silent to- 
day — to commingle my tears with those of the stricken household 
— with the tears of the great American people. I would prefer 
to hear others speak — to be still, and suffer God alone to speak ; 
but rebelliou and treason have culminated in tbe murder of our 
beloved and noble Chief Magistrate. This is not the time to be 
silent. I would be untrue to you, uutrue to myself as a citizen 
of this great Republic, as an Ambassador of truth, a servant of 
Christ, untrue to the promptings of my own deeply moved heart, 
unworthy the confidence and love you have ever reposed in me, 
did I fail to speak forth the words of truth and soberness. 

This is resurrection day ; the day upon which the Church, during 
all her history, commemorates the rising from the grave of Him, 
who, but the third day before, had been crucified. In this drapery 
we have combined here to-day the emblems of sorrow and of joy. 
Nature is putting on her Easter robes — the grass is beginning to 
spring forth, the buds to swell, the leaves are unfolding, and the 
trees are covered with their varied blooms. After the long and 
dreary nights of winter, all nature has revived, and holds forth 



ur admiring s bouquet, filling the air with fra- 

grance and the soul with glad 

'i hese weeds of mourning, reminding us of the murder of our 
honored President on the Crucifixion day of our now risen Lord, 
are appropriately wreathed \ i iful flowers, preachers of the 

resurrection, entwined with a, pointing to an immortality 

in a tearless land 

The plotting rious Redeemer supposed the 

nailing to the Cross ended all pretensions to the establishment of 
His kingdom among the kingdoms of earth. Unable to resist the 
His truth, they vainly hoped to burj all — even hi.s very 
memory — in the new made, rock-bound sepulchre. Our Lord cru- 
cified. His own friend — His . gave up all for lost. 
We supposed, said they, that it had been He that should have re- 
de* mod I.-racl. They were looking for the yoke of the Roman 
Oppressor to be broken; but, their Lord put to death, every one 
in despair went to his own home. The Church to-day — this 
Christian —the whole Church Catholic, in our land, 
in all laud-, with her Bible, her .Mini>;ry, her thousand agencies 
for a •■- how false were the hop< • an I bow groundless the 
- and friends. 

Thou I ('hied' Magistrate lies in the chilling em- 
braci lay, and our honored Prime Minister of § 
lingers in pain beneath the assassin's blow, our Government still 
— be murdered — but truth never. Jesus may, 
by wicked hands, be crucified, but His cause lives. That is a pari 
Abraham Lincoln bas fallen a martyr to truth, to 
principle, to freedom, to law and order, and g I Govern m 

i our he:. il- are ! OUT hopes are not CTU8 

i of the assassin, upon which Heaven frowns, and of 

be ashamed, ma) fill the land with mourn 

but it oei '. 1 1 1 1 fresh ovincible pur- 

ontend for the truth, even at the price of life. We have 

been laying upon our country's altar our most preoious treasure. 

ivered with the blood of our husbands and fathers, and 

and in hi s aed into the price of liberty. \ud dow, 

when rebellion is well nigh crushed, when our armies, flua 

with . i iv;i nerves her fiendish 



arm to strike down our Moses, who, under Gocl, has led us through 
the wilderness, as he stands upon Pisgah, in full view of the 
Promised Land, the laud flowing with milk and honey. 

The most guilty of the murderers of our Lord were not the men 
who made the Cross, or plaited the crown of thorns, or drove the 
nails, or thrust the spear ; not the Centurion and his hundred 
men, as they guarded that innocent victim of hellish malice. They 
were the least guilty. They were but the hand of the power that 
enacted and expounded the law. Judas was guilty. Herod was 
guilty. Pilate was guilty — the Sanhedrim, with Caiphas, the 
Chief Priests, and Scribes ; the populace, crying " Crucify, crucify 
Him" — these all were guilty. Their pride and envy, and malice 
and revenge, were all embodied, vitalized, in that one act, the 
murder of the King of the Jews 

The poor, miserable, wicked assassin, whose name is not wor- 
thy of mention, though he has gone out with a mark deeper than 
the mark of Cain upon him, and who cannot escape the justice 
that awaits him, was but the representation and instrument of the 
enemies of the Heaven-blessed Government, whose Head they 
have stricken down. 

Our lather's God, to Thee, 
Author of Liberty, 

though crushed and humbled in the very dust, to Thee we lift our 
hearts with confidence, and hope, and- thanksgiving, that though 
the great, and good, and wise man whom Thou did'st give us, to 
govern, has beeu stricken down, the people, the government, the 
eternal principles of Truth, and Freedom, and Righteousness, still 
live. 

I call you to witness to-day, my brethreu, that this pulpit has 
offered no uncertain sound, during these four years of treason and 
blood. Neither by silence — for silence is treasou, when the life 
of the nation is endangered — by thought, look, word, or act, has 
your pastor given aid and comfort to that thirst for power which 
has culminated in the murder of Abraham Lincoln. The loyalty 
of this pulpit has not been begotten amid the victorious bat- 
tles of our noble men by land and by sea, nor in the presence 
of the crumbling ruins of rebellion. But the position of your 
pastor to-day is what it was at the firing of the first gun 



up< i) our glorious flag of Sumter. Though Southern by birth, 
and by residence, during h ministry, his loyalty is not 

a thing of prejudice or passion, but takes its inspiration from 
this blessed Book, which teaches us to obey Magistrates, <ni<l 
that tin powers /lie/ I* are ordained of God. J thank God 
to-day, that I have had on part nor lot in this matter; that 
lie enabled me. in the dark days of our national struggle, 
when the faint-hearted warned me, and the disloyal hated, and 
forsook my ministry, that God gave me strength and courage to 
the truth. No man has ever weakened tin' arm of the 
rnment and given courage to the enemy from tin 1 inspiration 
of this sacr d desk This pulpit is in mi Bense chargeable with 
tin' bio d of Abraham Lincoln, 

When aroused from my midnight slumbers, by the alarming 
intelligence, that our President had been assassinated — even now 
we can scarcely realize that he. from whose facile pen we were hut ix 
few d receiving des] atches "i' victories ; whose pleasant, 

so familiar to many of us ; who has just been telling 
us, and the nation, and the world, of prospective peace, and speak- 
ing healing words, wor I tleness and forbearance, and for- 
giveness and love, healing the deep wounds of the nation's heart j 
the tender and earnest Intercessor, pleading with u-, who have 
given our very life-blood to save Truth, and Freedom, and Govern- 
ment, entreating us to forgive out enemies, and forget the Btrong 
blows aimed at our very vitalfl — that he should he stricken down, 
the friend of the offending rebel, we can hardly realize. Yet it 
II is tall, manly form lies in the cold embrace id' death to- 
day; and as we Stand weeping Over his mortal remains, the heart 
id' the nation is nerved with new purpose t" Suppress, at every 
tly rebellion, ami remove from the land that which 

iven it inspiration and life. But for that, rebellion would 
r have hel being. This inspires the pride ami tyranny 

which Would make every will subject to its own, which must rulr 
or ruin. The verdict of the American people to day. as it |< 

upon the spilled blood of the great Champion of human rights, 

the friend of the the emancipator of four millions of 

bondmen, is, that the land must be fret — an open Bible, a free 
pulj it, a free pie . free spe< eh, a free people. 



These millions, euamored of their chains, may, as the delivered 
Israelites in their straits, murmur against Mo.-es and against 
God, and say, would God we had remained in bondage. We 
may not be able to answer all the hard questions which may arise 
as to our duty towards the freedman, though God, who has 
accomplished their deliverance, will teach us ; but the one pur- 
pose is formed, that the whole laud must be free. The voices of 
God and of 'the people are one in this verdict. His work is done. 
I thank God that his sun was not eclipsed during the dark days 
of our history, when clouds appeared to gather around our starry 
banner; but when it floated upon the soil of every rebel State — 
all covered with glory — when the clouds are rolling away and 
peace is rapidly rising to the zenith. He longed to see this day. 
He saw, and was glad. Ah ! yes, and though our hearts are sad 
to-day we are glad too — thankful that God gave us so good, so 
wise, so humane a ruler, and spared him to us so long, crowning 
his government with the prospect of an early, a righteous, and 
permanent peace. 

Our blessed Lord, once called to the death chamber in the 
Ruler's house, said of the maid, " not dead, but sleepeth." And 
these words of Jesus, on this resurrection day, inspire hope as we 
stand in the presence of the lifeless Ruler now. Not dead; no, 
he is not dead. He needs no marble shaft to perpetuate his mem- 
ory, to tell future generations that he lived. He lives not only 
in the hearts of the four millions of freedmen, from whom he has 
broken the shackles of bondage, but in the heart of this entire 
nation his name is embalmed in honor and love. In all future 
history this name will stand beside that of "Washington, if he 
was the father of his country, under God, Abraham Lincoln 
was its saviour. He sleeps, as we have reason to know, not an 
unbeliever, but as one who feared God and wrought righteousness. 
He lives where the martyred men of all ages live — we believe, 
where the Great Martyr, our Lord Jesus, lives — in that heavenly 
City, whose air is not pregnant with treason and malice and death • 
but, where the heart, cleansed and inspired by the blood and 
spirit of Jesus, is in perfect and eternal sympathy with the great 
Redeemer, whose name is love. May these precious memories' 
and hopes sustain and comfort his stricken widow and fatherless 

2 



children. May the heavy affliction be sanctified by Him who 
makes all things to work together for good, and makes even 
the wrath of man to praise Ilim. 

In a government other than Republican, the assassination of its 
Head might paralyze its i or incite revolution. But the af- 

fairs of the Republic roll on to-day steadily — guided, under God, 
by a true and loyal heart, and by an arm strong and resolute. 
Sustained by the patriotism and wisdom of the nation, as well as 
by the prayers of God's people, though our joy has been turned 
into sorrow, the future, inspired by holy resolve, is no less hope- 
ful and bright than when the whole land was Hushed with victory. 
The patriot and christian heart of the nation should, and will, 
now encourage and make strong the arm of the President of the 
United States, whilst we embalm in memory the surpassing worth 
of the fallen Chieftain. 

In partaking of this bread and wine, wc are carried back to the 
Betrayal night. And herein the most solemn manner, we renew 
our consecration to our Divine King. This is a consecration act. 
Wi say by it that we arc not our own — that we belong toJesus,who 
smed us by the price of His own blood — that henceforth we 
arc to live not unto ourselves, but unto Ilim thatdied for us. As 
we approach this table to-day, is it not proper, with the remem- 
brance of the spilled blood of this great human Representative of 
truth and Freedom, and humanity and love, before us, thai we 
as 'patriot Christians, renewing first out allegiance to Jesus, 
tin a to our country — first to the Cross, then to our Flag. The 
times in which we live call for earnest consecration to Jesus in 
the cause of our country. Our land has a mission. Our whole 

history shows < rod's hand with OS. We arc to teach the world the 

Bible taught truth, that man is capable of self-government. We 
an- to be the light of the world. In the light of our life the tin 
of (Jespots will tremble, and the power of the oppressor be broken. 
Drawing our patriotism, and philanthropy, and religion from this 
great fountain of Divine Truth, we are to proclaim to the nations 
.if the earth, through a free pulpit, a free press, free Bchools, and 
free people, the truth which only the despot in Church or State 
fears; and the o] "-'lit to feat and tremble, for 1" 

lied in the balance and i- found wanting. 



But that our mission may be fulfilled, we must be a consecrated 
people — a people consecrated to the great principles of free gov- 
ernment — to the teachings of Jesus, who came not only " to preach 
the Gospel to the poor, and heal the broken hearted, but to pro- 
claim deliverance to the captives, and the opening of the prisons 
to them that are bound." 

" Hail to the Lord's anointed, 
Great David's greater Son! 
Hail in the time appointed, 
His reign on earth begun. 
He conies to break oppression, 
To set the captive free, 
To take away transgression, 
And rule in equity. 
He comes with succor speedy, 
To those who suffer wrong ; 
To help the poor and needy, 
And bid the weak be strong ; 
To give them songs for sighing, 
Their darkness turn to light, 
Whose souls, condemned and dying, 
Were precious in His sight." 

The Church — the whole body of believers, of every name — is 
the living representative of Jesus in a rebel world, to teach the 
truth He taught, to live the life He lived, and, if need be, to die the 
death He died, that the kingdom of ignorance, and oppression, 
and siu may be destroyed. 

The bloody struggle of the past four years, of which this tragic 
deed is one of the closing acts, is full of significance. Nations, 
as well as individuals, may have their second birth — must be born 
again — before they are prepared for a pure, vigorous, and useful 
manhood. Our nation has been born again, amid the terrible 
carnage of the battle-field, and baptized by the tears and blood of 
the entire land. Our noblest sons have been laid upon the great 
sacrificial altar. Heaven — the God of truth and justice and 
mercy, the God of battles — has accepted the offering, and now, 
as we rise to the purity and dignity and responsibility of our 
renewed nationality, we must offer this last sacrifice, and thank 
God that our President's dying eyes rested, not upon the ruins of 
a once mighty Republic, but upon the land redeemed, regenerated, 
ennobled, prepared for the great mission upon which the King of 
Kings sends her forth. 



12 



We have come forth, not enfeebled by the death agony through 
which we ha\ but stronger than when we entered upon 

our life trial. God 1; I upon the nation in her noble 

struggle. Agriculture, manufactures, commerce, religion, all 
share tin' dit ag. A flood of prosperity has rolled over 

us, in which we are in danger of forgetting God. And yet the 
religious life of the land lias never been so vigorous — our sanctu- 
aries thronged, our treasuries full, souls converted, and the whole 
Church aroused from her lethargy and pouring forth her treasure 
an<l talent not only in strengthening the bulwarks of Zion, but, 
above all, in ministering to the wants, bodily and spiritual, of our 
brave defenders, and even remembering those whose parricidal 
hand aimed a death blow at the very vitals of our Government. 

The life of the nation is healthy, vigorous, to-day — nerved with 
holy resolve. 

As the war-cloud rolls away from the rebel States, we shall 
witm 5 of civil strife. Not only are governments 

disorganized, but the Church, I construction. The 

Southern pulpit, forgetting the Apostolic injunction, has fired the 
Southern heart and strengthened the arm of the rebel govern- 
. by preaching treason and resistance to rightful authority 
The terrible desolations of civil war have swept over these States 
All i> disorder there, in the family, the church, ami the govern- 

|i, the midst of our Borrow to-day, our hearts should overflow 

witii thanksgiving that the hand of the destroyer has not pars 

I the arm of our industry nor polluted our altars. A glance 

at our Southern land shows what our cities and towns would be 

bad the boast of the destroyer been realized, and the .-lave roll 

i eall.-d i leer Hill. But God has given us the vic- 

blessed be li^ hoi) name! Glory he to tin' father and to 

tin- Son and to the Holy Ghost, as il was in the beginning, is 

now. and ever -hall he, world without end ! 

\\C mast now addi . as patriot Christians, to the 

duties of the hour It is ours to strengthen the arm of the Exec- 

utive. to t '-mi with our sympathies, our confidence, and 

our prayei li is ours i<> remember the brave men who have 

as a wall of fire between ti and our enemies; to care for the 




widow and orphan of the slain soldier; to feed the hungry and 
clothe the naked of our country's enemies; to educate and elevate, 
so far as sanctified knowledge can elevate, the four millions of 
freedmen from whom the fetters have been broken, by the wise 
counsel of our President and the valor of our arms ; to raise to 
new life the Church, wounded, sundered, bleeding, dying, amid 
the flames of rebellion; to teach the people to render unto Csesar 
the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are Cod's — 
not to revenge and exasperate, but to forgive, to heal, to help, and 
bind in one common brotherhood all the States of this Union — to 
kill the fatted calf upon the return of the penitent, needy, and 
humbled prodigal. Though the diabolical hand of the assassin 
has felled the noble President, around whom the heart of the 
nation gathered, in this work of reconciliation and healing, 
revenge must not fire our heart. But whilst the dignity of the law 
and the honor of the Government must be vindicated, the spirit 
of the fallen One, his humanity, his forbearance, his slowness to 
wrath, his love of peace, must animate our hearts. Our erring 
brethren, whilst being taught that treason is crime, must yet know 
that only the love of order and peace insists upon its penalty; that 
justice is tempered with mercy; that righteousness and peace may 
kiss each other. 

In the memorial of our Saviour's death, and with these em- 
blems of our national sorrow, we must anew consecrate ourselves 
to-day to these works of Christian philanthropy. Though we be not 
able to see alike upon all the great questions that have agitated 
the land, yet with treason and rebellion concentrated in the fell 
blow of the assassin, as patriots and Christians we must forget our 
differences, and rise superior to our prejudices. We must meet 
the issues of the day as men, planting ourselves upon the Bible, as 
we stand beside the Cross, and unfurl our starry banner, now 
draped in mourning, with the undying resolve, that, in God's 
name, the right shall triumph, though our own blood pay the price. 

God has taught us, during this struggle, what we can do, when 
deeply in earnest. The Christian and the patriot, sparing not 
their own sons, have, with them, freely given of their treasure and 
labor to bind up the wounds and pour in oil and wine. The 
millions of treasure that have cheered our suffering soldiers may 



dow be expended to restore the ruin of war and heal heart wounds 
which have estranged the North and the .South. There is not be- 
fore us a season of resl . i b ■ h the el i h of ai tus is soon to cease, 
but of labor — -rant and earnest. The work so 

auspiciously begun, bo ssfully prosecuted by our martyred 

-ident, must be carried on, until the world shall enjoy that 
freedom wherewith Clirist makes the people ft 

adage is no mi ; ;an true, that the "blood of the 

martyr.- is the seed of the Church." The disciples scattered, 
during the first century, by the persecution and martyrdom of our 
Lord, and His def did not go with sealed lips, but 

opened their mouth boldly, declaring the truth. And with our 
land regenerated by fire, the arm of the oppressor broken, our 
noble and beloved Leader slain, shall not our tongue be fired with 
holy zeal, not for party. ion, but for truL 1 loyalty 

mid and shrinkingin the presence of treason .' Shall freedom 
hide her head for fear of the r ? Shall the press be fear- 

ful and compromising? Shall the pulpit give an uncertain souud 
in tn '.here be poisoned with 

the ssion and treason, if / sk fail to 

th the truth i ; y my heart forget her ■ 

and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth. 



